The Red String
by Lady Lithe
Summary: Ginny tries to find a spell to reveal the legendary red string that ties two fated people by their pinkies.If she can discover who her soul mate is, she won’t need to waste time moping over a certain green-eyed boy. Huh, but just whom is she connected to?
1. Chapter 1:The Opposite of Defenestration

That Red String That Ties Me To You

By: Lady Lithe

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Summary: There's a legend that a red string ties two fated people together by their pinkies. Ginny decides to try to find a spell that will reveal the string. After all, if she can discover who her soul mate is, she won't need to waste time moping over a certain green-eyed boy. Huh, but just whom is Ginny connected to…?

Naru: Something lighter than Paper Planes. I wrote it a while ago, but since I can't seem to update my stories yet...please enjoy this in the meantime.

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Chapter One: The Opposite of Being Defenestration

_It is said that people who are fated together are tied together by a red string on their pinkies. My red thread… Where is it? Who is it attached to, I wonder? Maybe it's… What if it's…? -Nodaka_

"Hermione, are you absolutely positive that I need to start studying three months before everyone else starts to study for the O.W.L.s?" Ginny whimpered to her best friend as she dropped her red head onto an inhumanely enormous book. She was never sure where on earth Hermione dug up these books.

"You were the one that said that you wanted to dedicate yourself to something," Hermione reminded Ginny without looking up from her own insanely colossal textbook. Her brown eyes were practically glued to the page.

"But it's so hot," Ginny complained, fanning her slightly flushed face. She was surprised at how calm and composed Hermione looked – her Gryffindor tie still properly placed around her fully buttoned-up blouse while Ginny had rolled up her sleeves around her elbows and had loosened her tie. It was the fall but they were having an extremely long hot streak recently. Many students simply spent their days in the daze, desperately avoiding any unnecessary activity.

"You know," said Ginny casually, "you would have guys drooling all over you if you would let them. And if you weren't studying all the time."

"Psh," Hermione brushed off Ginny's comment. "I don't want or need guys."

"Oh yes, that's right. Just my insufferable brother. I'll never understand your taste in men."

"Shush," Hermione hissed, turning a deep shade of red. "Now stop complaining about studying. You said it would help you forget about Harry."

"_Shh_!" Ginny said immediately, her eyes darting around the library. Mercifully, no one else was in the library. Technically it was a secret that Ginny still had feelings for her brother's best friend, the famous Harry Potter.

She had informed everyone that she was over the raven-haired boy during her fourth year and had promptly gone out with Michael Corner. She didn't feel guilty at the least that Michael had been on the rebound because he had been nothing but a sore loser. She was rather grateful for him, however, because he had distracted her from focusing on Cho Chang and Harry's relationship. But now that she had dumped Michael, she had trouble keeping her mind away from the newly single (and taller) Harry Potter.

So she had decided to focus on other things aside from boys. But how could she study? After all, she thought, sighing as she settled back into the book, it was a nice and sunny Saturday.

"I know what I said, but couldn't I have dedicated myself to Quidditch or something? It's much more entertaining!"

"Quidditch means seeing Harry," Hermione reminded her younger friend once again, her gaze still locked on her book.

"I know, I know," Ginny grumbled. But how could anyone concentrate when the beautiful sunlight was pouring out of the window? Or while she could almost hear the happy laughter of other students outside in the shade when she was trapped in the stuffy library? "But I just don't think this is working."

"Still thinking about him?" Hermione inquired, arching an eyebrow.

"Maybe," Ginny said plaintively. Suddenly, she sat up, as if struck by inspiration. "You know what? Maybe I should figure out if he is the one for me or not. If he isn't I can finally give up on him because I'll know he's not the destined one for me! Then I can concentrate on the one that is for me!"

"And how do you suppose we'll know that?" Hermione asked, now curiously to looking up from her book.

"Well, I once heard about this Japanese belief," Ginny explained seriously, holding up her right pinky. "You see, there's a saying about a red string connected from your pinky to the one-you-are-fated-to-be-with's pinky."

"This is because there's a vein connected directly from your pinky to your heart, if I'm correct," Hermione reasoned. Ginny paused, arching an eyebrow at her all-knowing friend.

"Right… So if I can figure out who this person connected to me is…"

"I see," Hermione nodded earnestly, fascinated at this new prospect as she examined Ginny's pinky. "But how are we going to make this string visible?"

Ginny's triumphant smile froze. Hermione let out an exasperated sigh.

"I see. Well, at least it's a good thing that we're in the largest library for miles," Hermione smirked as Ginny smiled back nervously.

Together, they searched and searched and searched. Ginny thumbed through more books than she ever had in her entire life. She thumbed through so many that she was sure that she was going to have blisters the next day! Two hours later, she shoved an old textbook back into its proper place and sighed, ready to give up.

"I FOUND IT!" Hermione unexpectedly screamed, startling Madam Pince, the librarian, enough to throw up her papers.

"Miss Granger!" she hissed in her strident voice. Hermione bowed her head sheepishly before hastening to Ginny's side.

"You found it?" Ginny asked eagerly as she wiped away dust from her face.

"I think so," Hermione frowned as she opened the blue book in her hand. Ginny stared down at the unfamiliar characters in front of her.

"It's…in Japanese?" Ginny ventured, gesturing towards the foreign symbols.

"Exactly," Hermione confirmed. "I'm not very good at Japanese, seeing how I've never took too much time to learn it. I have, however, dabbled here or there in the language."

Ginny resisted rolling her eyes. The brunette knew at least something about _everything_.

"It says here," Hermione spoke as her fingers moved across the old page, "that if you chant this spell, your red string that ties you to that someone will appear."

"Want to give it a whirl?" Ginny asked.

"Alright."

Hermione and Ginny then moved near the window, with Ginny's back facing away from it. For a moment, Hermione almost commented on how stunning Ginny looked. She had certainly grown from her old, eleven-year-old self. Now she had a certain feminine grace. Her body had filled out in all the right places and her lovely red tresses flowed pretty down her back. Many boys had taken interest in the girl, now that she had officially dumped Michael Corner. A pity, Hermione thought, that Ginny still had feelings for a certain Boy-Who-Lived.

"Okay," Hermione now turned back to the book and squinted at it. "It says to concentrate hard on this person."

"Who?" Ginny frowned.

"I think who you want it to be. That, or the feeling of love," Hermione speculated.

Ginny swallowed hard and closed her eyes. The feeling of love… there was only one person whom she felt like that with. She could see him so clearly. His thick locks of raven hair falling over his black wire glasses and his wide emerald eyes as his lips curved upward in a lopsided grin that never failed to make her heart beat faster. Then there was the way he laughed. The sound automatically brightened whatever room she was in.

_Harry. Harry Potter. Harry._

Hermione began chanting in a foreign language that Ginny couldn't understand.

The way he had looked so lost on Platform 9 ¾. His mesmerizing eyes. His kissable lips. The victorious look on his face as he soared in the sky on his Firebolt with the golden Snitch in his able fingers.

_Harry!_

Suddenly a bright white light surrounded Ginny. Her shocked expression mirrored Hermione's. A bright red string appeared out of thin air, tied to her right pinky. The string shot out the window.

"It…it worked!" Ginny cried in awe at the glowing string.

She wasn't able to say anything more because she nearly screamed as the string abruptly wrenched her toward the window. Luckily, Hermione grabbed onto Ginny before the girl flew out. They let out sighs of relief, when faintly they heard screaming. As it grew louder, they realized it was comprised of male voices. Slowly standing up, they looked out the window and what they saw made their eyes widen in horror.

Harry Potter, with Ron Weasley clinging onto his legs, was flying straight at them at an alarming speed.

Hermione and Ginny took a deep breath.

And then they screamed.

"_**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"**_

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Naru: Please review and tell me what you think! Thank you for reading.


	2. Chapter 2: So We’re Attached By

The Red String

By: Lady Lithe

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Naru-chan: Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed!

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Chapter Two: So We're Attached By A Glowing String…

"_What is all this racket?_" shrieked Madam Pince shrilly as she bustled over, her heels clattering meticulously against the ground. She stared, horrified, at the heap of four groaning students, all of them tangled together. "Harry Potter! Ron Weasley! Hermione Granger! I should have known it was the three of you!"

"But we didn't mean to," Ron protested, rubbing his aching head. Then he looked down to see Hermione and he blushed as deep as his red hair. He scrambled to get off her. Meanwhile Ginny, despite the great pain she felt, couldn't help but notice the new muscles Harry had gained from all that Quidditch practice.

"That's it, get out, all four of you!" Madam Pince commanded, her hands on her hips.

"What's going on?" moaned Harry, squinting. He searched the ground for his glasses and luckily found them unharmed.

"Out, out, _out_!"

"We're going, we're going!" Ginny replied, quickly rising to get her things. But for some reason, she found something holding her back and she was so surprised by the sudden pulling of her hand that she toppled backwards, right back on top of Harry.

Not that she was complaining…

"Hurry!" urged Hermione, who grabbed Harry and Ginny, and ran out of the library before Madam Pince threw a fit. Ron quickly followed. Once outside, she let out a relieved sigh.

"Now what's going on?" Ron demanded, running a hand through his red hair.

"Yeah…one moment Ron and I were outside heading towards Hagrid's when I feel a sudden pull and began to fly away when Ron grabbed onto me. It was this red string," Harry said, holding up his pinky. Indeed, there was a glowing red thread tied around his pinky and it connected to Ginny's.

"What red string?" Ron asked, completely baffled. He glared at Harry's raised pinky.

"Oh, Merlin, this can't be," Ginny gasped, blushing so red that even her ears were hot. Harry? Harry bloody Potter was that special someone for her? This was too good to be true! Was she dreaming? She was about to pinch herself when Hermione cried out.

"Oh gosh!" Hermione screamed, holding the Japanese book while glaring at it incredulously. "I'm so sorry, Ginny! The spell wasn't what I thought it was!"

"W-what?" Ginny tried to keep her face from falling.

"What red string? Why am I left out of this?" Ron demanded, stomping his foot against the ground.

"What spell?" Harry asked with frustration, not understanding at all what was happening.

"I thought it said '**the** red string that connects two people.' It actually says '**a** red string that connects two people,'" Hermione cringed apologetically. "I told you I wasn't very good at Japanese."

"Shoot!" groaned Ginny. She knew it had been too good to be true… As if _Harry Potter _was her soul mate! Who was she kidding…? The worst part was that part of her had believed…for just a moment.

"Will someone explain what's going on?" Ron yelled.

"Okay, okay!" Ginny glared at her brother. "We were just trying to find who I'm destined to be with, alright?"

"Blimey! I can see it now! How could I have missed it?" Ron's jaw dropped. "It's…_glowing_!"

"I think no one can see it until we tell him or her about the spell first," Hermione hypothesized.

"Wait…" Harry's eyes widened dramatically. "The one you're destined to be with? That doesn't mean…"

"No, Harry, it's not you," Ginny snapped. She couldn't help but keep the impatience from her voice. How could anyone blame her when he sounded so horrified at the idea of being fated to her? At least she had kept her voice from quivering. "That's what Hermione was just explaining. Japanese, apparently, isn't her strong suit."

"Japanese?" Ron and Harry questioned at the same time as Hermione defensively muttered something about never really having extensively studied Japanese.

"It's a Japanese belief that there's a red string connecting two soul mates together by their pinkies," Ginny said, wistfully looking at the thread currently attached to her pinky. "We thought that was the spell to make it visible, but apparently, it was just a spell to make an ordinary red string attach to two people."

"Oh," Harry said. "So we can just untie it."

Ginny lowered her eyes to the ground miserably. Was it that bad to be attached to her?

Ron reached over and tried to undo the bow around Harry's left pinky. He frowned when he found that he couldn't.

"Blasted…" Ron grumbled.

"Here, let me try," Hermione said, taking out a pair of scissors from her bag. Ron stared at her in amazement.

"Wow. Girls really _do_ carry everything in their bags!"

Hermione threw a glare at him before proceeding to try to cut the string. However, it simply didn't work. After they tried several spells to no avail, they gave up.

"Maybe it's because it was a Japanese spell," Hermione speculated.

"Then do you know any counter curses in Japanese?" Harry asked. Sadly, Hermione shook her head. "What do we do?"

"Should we go see Dumbledore?" Ron asked, scratching the back of his head.

"He's probably too busy for such trivial things," Hermione argued logically. She scanned the book once more. "It says it should fade…by the stoke of midnight."

"Are you sure we can trust you?" Ron snorted, only to earn himself a solid jab in ribs.

"Well, that's very Cinderella if you asked me," she smiled at Ginny.

"Sinnder-what?" Ginny replied blankly.

"Er – it has to do with this peasant girl with an evil stepmother and two evil stepsisters," Hermione began.

"I don't see how this relates at _all_ to this situation," Ron claimed obnoxiously since he seemed to have realized something the all-knowing girl had not.

"Let me finish first," Hermione hissed moodily.

"There's a ball held by the prince," Harry frowned, trying to remember the fairytale correctly. "And one thing leads to another and her stepmother won't let her go. So her fairy godmother – "

"A fairy what?" Ginny frowned.

"She, er, is magical. It's a Muggle story. Anyway, she grants gives Cinderella a beautiful dress and carriage out of a pumpkin and mice into horses. But the spell wears off at the twelfth stroke of midnight. She goes, the prince falls in love with her, but then she has to leave in a hurry at twelve because she's scared that he won't love her anymore once he sees her in her old peasant clothes. She accidentally leaves her glass slipper behind and he searches for her. Eventually he finds her and they get married. They live happily ever after."

"Muggles," Ron grumbled. "Unbelievable. As if one simple spell could do all of that."

"Anyway, we're lucky that today is Saturday. At least we don't have any classes," Ginny said positively.

"She does have a point there," Harry agreed, smiling. "This isn't so bad. At least I'm not attached to someone like Lavender."

Never had she been so glad than that moment that they were friends. They had gotten closer during the summer that had just passed (the summer before she became a fifth year). She was no longer tongue tied or blushed whenever the raven-haired boy was around. She was happy that she could play Quidditch, study with, and talk to him, but simultaneously, she rather despised this status because it reminded her just how much and why she still fancied the clueless boy.

"But just how long is the string?" Hermione asked.

"I…I'm not quite sure myself," Ginny replied honestly. She moved away from Harry and the string followed, but when she took three quick steps further, it froze and pulled her back, glowing more brightly. Harry then cautiously walked toward her and it shrunk as the distance became smaller and smaller.

"I think this is quite a fickle string," Harry said, amused. "I guess it grows and shrinks but we really have no control over it."

"Wait bloody a minute!" Ron shouted suddenly, causing everyone to jump. "How will you two take bathes?"

Harry and Ginny instantly turned scarlet. Ginny hadn't thought of that! How _was_ she going to? The very image of her and Harry together in the showers was enough to make her faint.

"Don't worry, I'm sure we'll think of something," Hermione mollified Ron, who continued to eye Harry suspiciously.

"Yeah…" Ron said warning. "Because Harry knows that Ginny's my _little sister_."

The last two words sounded distinctly like a threat.

"Of course!" Harry nodded a bit too eagerly and in a voice a bit too high. Ginny resisted the urge to hex both of them. Did they completely forget that she was standing there?

"Well what do we do now?" Ginny asked, hiding how rankled she felt inside. The three of them looked at each other uncertainly. Apparently they wouldn't need to answer that question, however, because at that very instant Dean and Seamus came running up the four of them.

"Hey Ginny!" Dean grinned at her before turning to the others. "Guys."

"Dean," Ron said in the same suspicious tone he had just used with Harry. Hermione jabbed him lightly in the stomach and smiled politely at Dean.

"Guess what's happened!" Seamus smirked, his eyes gleaming.

"What's happened?" Harry inquired.

"Today's so hot that Dumbledore's decided to have the whole school – or anyone who wants to come, to the beach!" Seamus folded his arms over his chest, obviously pleased with himself because he discovered information before Hermione Granger for once.

"Wow…so through a Portkey, right?" Ginny blinked, imagining how lovely it would be as she fanned her face. She hadn't been to a beach since…well, she couldn't even remember!

"Yeah! Everyone's going! Better hurry up!" Dean informed them before he and Seamus ran off to go get their things from their rooms.

"Let's go!" Ginny was reared up.

"Hold it, hold it, _hold_ it!" Ron grabbed his sister's arm just as she headed toward the direction of where Dean and Seamus had been heading. "Where do you think you're going?"

"To the beach, of course!"

"Have you gone _barking mad_?"

"No," an exasperated Ginny sighed. "Ron…everyone will be there. And it's not as if we'll be starch naked! Everyone will be wearing a bathing suit of some sort."

"Oh," Ron said stupidly.

"So are you guys coming or not?" she asked, tugging at Harry's arm, feeling a slight tingle run up her arm which she ignored fiercely.

"Fine," grumbled Ron as he followed his sister with his arms folded over his chest and not sure what to expect or what to think of this whole situation. "But I still don't like it!"

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Naru-chan: Review? =)


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